I Don't Want to Set the World On Fire
by Heavenztrash
Summary: Lone Wanderer/Charon, romance, violence, foul language, angst, ghoul porn, cheese and fluff. Note: If you take exception to any of these things, just don't read it. There are a few minor grammatical/typo errors that I am aware of and will fix eventually
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer  
This story contains a potentially lethal combination of violence, foul language, angst, ghoul porn, cheese and fluff. If you take exception to any of these things, just don't read the thing.

Fun fact:  
This is my very first fanfic.

I Don't Want To Set The World On Fire.  
by A.G.F aka. MorphiaSurgery

-1-

The day I happened upon the Underground I was above all trying to avoid becoming a red stain on the pavement. I was dragging my carcass along a wall, frantically searching for an out,  
because playing a game of hide and seek with missile launcher wielding super mutants is a lot less fun than it sounds no matter what they'll tell you.  
The corners of my vision blackened and vibrated as my hearing faded into discord registering nothing but an internal high pitched whine and the distant bellows of the muties as they searched for me to finish the job. I stumbled blindly towards what I could barely make out as a doorway a few yards beyond the wall I was hugging for dear life.

Like an idiot, I had a pack full of stolen miscellanea but no stimpacks (or psycho or jet for that matter) and traipsing around The Wastes, withdrawing from dope(s) with a blinding head injury and a gibbled leg as stupid and suicidal as taking on a Behemoth with a pair of brass knuckles.  
Which is to say, pretty fucking stupid.

The muties faded into little jaundice colored blobs across the trenches as  
I staggered past some woman ignoring her as she talked at me in a raspy voice.

Now was not the time for introductions or manners. I ducked into the blurry shape of a door, on a hunch that the humanoid guard outside not attacking me may mean shelter and stimpacks inside. It was worth a try. It was either what was behind door number one or back to let the Super Mutants stuff me into a gore sack. I limped to the door, leaned on it and opened it, cringing at the squeak it uttered.  
Inside, nothing but cavernous silence bouncing off stately marble.  
I noiselessly padded forward as well as I could on my injured leg and looked up in awe as the remains of monsters from picture books and a huge skull carved of stone greeting me before my vision started to shift downwards before sliding into blackness like a mirelurk returning to the depths.

I tried to will myself to get up as the sound of soft, scratchy voices drew closer.

"God I hope they're not cannibals" was the last thing I remembered thinking before succumbing to unconsciousness. Despite what some uneducated people think of ghouls, most of them aren't cannibals and luckily these ones weren't as far as I knew.

I woke up to a faint and sickly sweet odor akin to rotting flesh and rubbing alcohol.  
Long story short I owe Dr. Barrows and the inhabitants of the Underworld my very life, so anyone who badmouths them can stick a frag grenade up their ass and pull out the pin if I don't do it to them first. I'm not just saying that either.

On the advice of Dr. Barrows I spent an indulgent week in a cot healing, chatting with Nurse Graves and reading the stack of comics I had thankfully stashed in my rucksack. I also met a woman named Reilly there but that's another story.

When I was more or less well, I recollected my gear, paid the Doctor a generous amount of caps and toddled off to have a look around the Underground and undo all of Dr. Barrow's good work by getting me something to drink, smoke, snort, pop and/or inject.  
Not that I'm an addict or anything. I just do enough to get by and keep things interesting.

I systematically searched the place starting with the first floor, met a bunch of damn decent ghouls and a rancorous robot who I intentionally avoided. I've dealt with more robots than you can shake a stick at and I'll just never completely trust 'em because of that they're all just a combat inhibitor doo- hickey away from becoming killing machines and that just doesn't help me relax any.

I ventured upstairs and shot the shit with a ghoul called Snowflake who was nice enough to spruce me up with a new haircut, up me a huff of jet and even dish a little good gossip.  
When I find a new city I like to save the bar for last because I inevitably send up sticking around in the bar and this time was no exception but it does mark the beginning of the end.

Not a moment later I entered The 9th Circle and I felt him even before I saw him.


	2. Chapter 2

I saw him.  
Sure enough I turned and there he was, like a supersledge to the face. 6 foot 8 inches of scars and secrecy, his pale eyes unblinking, his unsmiling face glowering over me as I entered the room and slowed to an awkward stop, biting my lip too hard and drawing blood.

I dabbed the blood off with my glove, composed myself, put on my most charismatic airs and tried to strike up a conversation despite the butterflies rising and falling in the pit of my stomach. It wasn't the jet either. I've done that shit a million times and I couldn't shake the weirdness I was experiencing even when my jet high dwindled into mild nausea as it does.

"Hi there" I said coolly.  
"Can I buy you a dr-"

He cut me off abruptly.

"Talk to Ahzrukhal." He growled

Taken aback, I redoubled my efforts.  
I had always had a way with men and he should only be so lucky.

"Who the fuck is Ahzrukhal? Are you trying to tell me you're gay? Taken? Hey. It's all good."

The large ghoul sneered at me, uttering an unintelligible grunt of irritation.

"No need to be an asshole about it, I was just kidding. I just got out of the Chop Shop and-"

He leaned forward so he towered over me even more and fixed his penetrating gaze on me.

"Talk. To. Ahzrukhal." He snarled, spelling it out so even I could understand it in a tone of voice that told me not to push him any further.

His eyes flitted to the ghoul behind the bar so I didn't have an excuse to ask any more stupid questions so I backed up feeling as sheepish as hell, all the while keeping my eyes locked the giant ghoul. I had stubbornly started a staring contest with the with the cryptic bastard and was determined to win it until I gracefully backed up into the bar and spilled someone's beer all over myself and the floor.  
Good job, champ.

"Can I help you, smoothskin?" Smiled the well-dressed Ghoul behind the bar smiling at me ingratiatingly.

I felt a rail of sticky warm beer trail down the back of my craptastic blastmaster armor and felt myself cringe. I turned my back towards the wall and pretended to focus on the ghoul in front of me, but back turned or not my focus was still undoubtedly on the giant ghoul in the corner.

I ordered a double vodka and quietly inquired about the ghoul in the corner.  
I trusted Ahzrukhal as much as I trusted that robot which is to say not at all, but when he told me that this ghoul in the corner, his bodyguard, was brainwashed and potentially for sale I offered him 1000 caps in exchange for the one named Charon and to my surprise, he accepted.  
I could barely contain myself when he placed the yellowing piece of paper in my palm and I smiled to myself knowing that without my penchant for stealing, this probably wouldn't have been so easy so who says crime doesn't pay?  
I acquired another couple of vodkas and went to chat up my new "purchase."

"Hi, Charon" I said unctuously as the ghoul sized me up yet again with those unblinking eyes.

"Talk to-"

"Oh no, Charon. None of that. You belong to me now."

Something flashed behind his eyes for a split second as I held the shot of vodka up for him to take.  
He didn't reach for it.

Continued to stare me squarely in the eyes with that strange animal calm of his.

"I belong to no one. If you are my new employer then I will serve you.  
But first I, must take care of something. Wait here."

Fair enough.  
"Be my guest." I said stepping out of the way, bowing slightly and drinking one of the shots of vodka.

The ghoul calmly strode past me, crossing the room in a few paces. He stopped in front of Ahzrukhal

and something told me he wasn't just stopping by to say goodbye as  
a palpable current of electricity made all the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

"Ahzrukhal. I am no longer in your service" he said politely before pulling the shotgun off his back and pumping Ahzrukhal full of shells.

He continued shooting Ahzrukhal even after his body was little more than a piece of meat that was once a man and then breezed past me nonchalantly, only saying

"Alright. Let's go."

"What the fuck was that?!" I blurted out.

Perhaps I didn't think this through as well as I could, which figures because I had to kill the last guy I went home with on jet/psycho because he turned out to be a cannibal _and _a transvestite.  
Who knows what the hell I'd gotten myself in here...how well could I really trust him after that little fiasco?

Charon placidly explained to me that he thought of Ahzrukhal as an "evil bastard" and he was glad to rid the world of that "disgusting rat", but now that he served me he would serve me for "good or ill."

At that moment I made a mental note to be very, very careful around my new "friend" because truthfully, I'm not exactly a shining beacon of hope by any stretch of the imagination.

"So does that mean if I misplace your contract then you'll blow me to kingdom come if I've made you stand in the corner for too long? Huh?!"

Charon just looked at me. His face impassive, still giving away nothing and I got lost in his eyes

for just a moment.

Deceptively emotionless, cool and tragic, pale in contrast to the dusky skin pulled taught over his chiseled skull. As before he just stared back, his expression stoic, his stance informal.

"I will serve you. For good or ill."

"Yeah I'll bet you say that to all the girls."  
I muttered as I gave an orphaned shot of whiskey a good home.  
"Goddammit... Just...just hold on."  
I knelt by Ahzrukhal's carcass, slid my hand under what was left of him to see what he had in what was left of his pockets. I retrieved the key to the fridge, discreetly looted all the goodies within it and got my 1000 caps back for good measure. I parked Charon on the concourse, almost hoping that when I got back from saying goodbye to Snowflake and talking business with a Mr. Crowley that he would be gone, but sure enough when I emerged from Mr. Crowley's, Charon hadn't budged and was busy ignoring some drunk.


	3. Chapter 3

The next little while was unremarkable although I mist admit, having someone accompanying me made life on the Wastes much easier to bear.

We wandered the Wastes, doing this and that, hurting some and helping others.  
I often made him wait outside a place if I knew I was going to go on a killing/stealing from innocents orgy because I feared him and what he thought. I was fuzzy on the whole contract thing and just tried to keep my...tendencies as hidden as I could to stay on the safe side for as long as I could.

When I went to Rivet city to run an "errand" for Mr. Crowley, I left Charon at the Muddy Rudder.

I washed the blood off myself and my silenced 10mm moments before returning to Charon and feeling a sense of guilt I hadn't had before. I snuffed out the guilt with a massive hit of psycho and then felt guilty about doing the psycho, and then felt guilty on top of it for not enjoying the psycho that I spent 30 caps on. I suddenly had a new found respect for raiders.

On the subject of guilt, as I left Rivet City I felt a pang of guilt knowing that I'd told my Dad I'd meet him in the science lab over a week ago. I would've turned back, but the thought of going made me feel physically ill and I couldn't bring myself to turn around and do what I was supposed to to expected to do. I reasoned that it was for a more mature reason than wanting to make my Dad know how it felt to be abandoned, but in all reality, it was probably just that. I reasoned that I would go when I was good and ready and only when I was good and ready. It'd give the fucker more time to think about his mistakes and give me more time to make some more mistakes to blame on the mistakes he made.  
Like my tendency to take any drug put in front of me.  
Totally his fault.

Out on the Wastes I watched Charon kill a pack of regulators while I cooled my heels.

He was fast becoming the only person I didn't think of as pitiful and all other men were beginning to look like feckless little sissies compared to him. All bark and no bite.  
I found watching Charon deal with hostiles to be...titillating in lack of a better word because not only did he seem to relish the kill, he was a killing machine. When we encountered hostiles, he didn't merely kill them, he ground them into a fine, red paste, spewing insults as if his life depended on it.

"Yeah! You like that? You dead fuck!"

When he was done, he'd rest his shotgun over one shoulder or squat on his haunches and just wait,

for if he wasn't killing he was waiting to kill. It appeared to be the only thing he enjoyed.  
I became as obsessed with watching him kill as I did about trying to pretend I dope-happy thief with a tendency to off people for no apparent reason aside from entertainment.

My life had become little more than watching him and trying to keep him from seeing me.  
I became compulsive about covering up my tracks and making him wait outside when I felt that nip in my brain that told me I was going to do things I didn't want him to see.  
I'm not sure how convincing it was, but it became second nature over time and I'm fairly certain that he didn't know the full extent of my delinquency beyond petty theft and mischief.

One morning I was watching him plow down a dozen raiders as they scrambled like radroaches, unable to escape the barrage of vulgarities and shells that Charon unloaded on them. It was only when he looked at me in passing, absent absentmindedly wiping some blood off his cheek with the back of his hand, that all of my emotions clicked into place like a landslide and I realized what the problem was.  
I'd had it bad for the bastard since day one and I guess I was just as much of a closeted ghoul-o-phobe as anyone because it took me that long for it to dawn on me.  
He was squatted on his haunches resting when he looked up and caught me looking at him in astonishment as I tried it on for size and saw that it indeed did fit like a glove.

"Cut down on the drugs, kid." He growled at me.

In a moment of drug-fueled paranoia I questioned whether he could hear my thoughts and  
I resolved to finish off what I had and then follow his advice. Not that I haven't said I was going to quit dope before mind you.


	4. Chapter 4

That night we set up to crash in the skeleton of an abandoned farm house and I got a little too drunk and hounded him with so many questions he actually lost it and yelled at me.

"Why don't you back off and leave me in peace for a change, kid!" he snapped before shambling away where he could keep an eye on me when I fell asleep.

He always called me "kid" in what I thought was the most patronizing and condescending manner, so like a kid I persisted with my random questioning until he exploded at me and left me chewing my lip in frustration. I didn't know how I was going to get anything out of him beyond the obligatory civility that my holding his contract commanded, and in my young, nihilistic mind I was determined to push things until they burst forth, for better or for worse.

Just add psycho, alcohol and a road too long.

We were squatting a dilapidated tent and I was talking at him again at a mile a minute as twilight started to envelop the Wastes like a dingy blanket.

We sat on rocks, I shakily trying to put my assault rifle back together and he hunched over, deftly maintaining his shotgun (as he did like clockwork) and any other weapon I put in front of him.  
Before I could stop myself from saying it, there it was hanging in the air like a bloatfly for all to see.

"Wanna knock boots?"

He looked up, his eyes wide and his jaw slightly slack.

"What." He said.

There was no way he couldn't have heard me.

It had seemed like a good idea a millisecond before I let it escape and now I felt like I was dying a thousand deaths of embarrassment. Since my vault days I have viewed men as weak creatures to be toyed with for fun and profit. You could hook them with no more than a lame suggestion that maybe something _may _happen to get what you wanted and then not give them so much as a peck on the cheek if you didn't feel like it. Or you could let them climb on top of you for a few minutes, a laugh

(and sometimes their undying affection.)

But this was no mere man to be toyed with and that's why I felt so damned by him.

I found myself wishing intently for a 'Gwai would pop out of nowhere (as they tend to) just to clear the air in case he called my bluff. I unconvincingly focused on my cleaning gun and turned on Galaxy Radio. But Oh no, Charon wasn't going to let that one fly without making me squirm just a little bit.

His voice was low and he spoke slowly like he was uttering a threat.

"What. Did. You. Say?"

Each word a command in itself, driven home by his incontestable gaze.

"I said I like mut-fruit." I said quietly.  
Good job. Real smooth.

"Yeah. Thought so." He said under his breath before  
before turning his attentions back to his gun.

But I wasn't going to let him go either.

"What do you mean you _thought so_?"

"I said be quiet!" He snapped before muttering a string of curses to himself that I couldn't discern.  
Bickering like old farts.  
At least it was something I reasoned. Better than silence.

"Hey. Charon. Don't worry about it, okay? I'll just be a good girl and shut the fuck up."  
I snapped back.

I tried to remain silent by drinking more vodka but I lacked the self control to hold my tongue.

"I've tried so hard not to be an asshole to you but you've done nothing but give me flack since the first word I ever uttered to you!"

"Who, may I ask has been giving who flack?" he said receding back into his patented brand of caustic respectfulness.

"I obey and that is the end of it. I lay down my life and do what you command. How is that _flack _as you call it? If you have a problem with something that I am doing, perhaps you should -"

"Oh no you don't. Don't poke me with a ripper and tell me it's foreplay. You're not a robot and if I thought you were brainwashed to the point of being braindead I'd treat you as such!"

He just looked at me.

"Charon. I could really just use a friend out here."

He opened his mouth to reply but I caught it before he could say it.

"And do NOT do that thing you do where I ask you to do something like a person and you tell me you'll do it because it is what is asked of you because it is what I will and all that.

You said yourself that I don't own you. Man up and just level with me for once!"

I absently fidgeted with a loose flap on my boot and he threw me a roll of duct tape to fix it.

"No! Godamnit! You're not allowed to be nice!"

I whipped the tape at his head, he caught it without batting an eye and tucked it neatly into his rucksack.

We both brooded in silence for what seemed like a very long time and  
then he leaned forward and held out his hand.  
I drew back slightly, shocked at the sight of him, leaning towards me, his eyes trained on mine, his hand outstretched towards me.  
Did he want me to take his hand? My heart skipped a beat and my rifle sagged to the ground as I loosened my grip on it. He leaned forward and reached between my boots, nudged my leg out of the way and picked up the rifle. He leaned back and finished reassembling it while I sat there like a dolt.

Silence ensued until he broke it, speaking in that civil voice of his.  
The one that was as grating as it was placating.

"I am not deaf you know. I heard what you said loud and clear.  
If it is your wish to be on friendly terms with me you should know that I do not appreciate being taunted. "

"Whta..tvr." I mumbled darkly, taking a long slug from my bottle..

"Oh no. I'm not letting this slide, kid" He said

We both stewed in silence for a moment until he extended his arm and snatched the bottle away from me which delighted me to no end because he had taken something on his own volition that wasn't a weapon. He poured the vodka into his mouth as if it would be unthinkable to touch his lips to the same thing that would touch mine and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand like he had before.  
When I took back the bottle from his open palm my fingertips brushed his leathery hand ever so lightly but he pulled his arm away as if he had touched an open flame.

He yanked up his shotgun again and began to take it apart, even though it had just been maintained.

"You don't think I got chatted up at the Circle from time to time?"

He said gruffly, fussing over his shotgun as he tended to  
"Always promising, never delivering. It's not me you broads want, it's something else, and I'll be fucked if I know what that thing is." "

"Who said I wanted you?" I said quietly

"Come on!" He bellowed, slamming his shotgun back together again.

"You ask me if I want to screw and then try to cover it up with some bullshit?  
A man knows when he's being strung along. Don't play dumb with me, kid."

I passed the bottle back to him and he snatched it, poured a shot or three down his throat.

"I don't care if you touch the bottle you know. We're not in grade school, I know you don't have cooties."

"As you wish." He said coldly.

His reply infuriated me to the point that I didn't realize I had leapt up to kick him until I felt the ground disappear from beneath me as I landed on my spine with a humiliating yelp.

I saw the moon appear between my ankles and looked up to see Charon's shadow looming above me holding the foot I had gone to kick him with.

He let go of my foot, threw a blanket over my head and shuffled away to sleep upright on a rock leaving me crumpled on the ground like so much Wasteland debris.  
I sat there feeling sorry for myself for awhile, trying to get the Wastes to stop spinning and then finally blacked out at some point, peeking at his stately silhouette from underneath the crusty blanket he had so sanctimoniously defeated me with.


	5. Chapter 5

The following week or so that passed by were a little different in the sense that Charon was uncharacteristically tolerant of my bullshit. It seemed like he was trying to be deliberately kind to the stupid girl who was confused enough to have a stupid crush on him of all people.

For the first time ever he tried to make me laugh. He knows I am utterly disgusted by centaurs and after blowing one away he nudged it over to the mutie and made it look like they died like lovers in each other's arms and when I accidentally touched him, he didn't pull away as he had before.

In later days I noticed him looking at me a few times with a tinge of pity in his eyes.  
This man, who went through god knows what horrors looking at me with pity.

It was enough to make me want to take a long walk off a short bridge.  
It was a nice change of pace though and an invitation to push the envelope.

I began to get sloppy with concealing my tendencies and it wasn't until I shot some woman wandering the Wastes that I realized what shaky ground I was on with him.

"Murderer!" He hissed as her body hit the ground, blood gushing from where her head had once been and then came silence different from his usual silence.

When he was sore about something, the muscles on his gaunt face would almost imperceptibly contract as he ground his jaw and what few things he said sounded as if he were saying them through a squeezed throat, his words coming out sounding tight and thin like he was speaking on the edge of his voice. When he was pleased with me he'd stand a little taller and a little closer when I spoke to him and his voice would drop to a husky growl that emanated from his chest rather than his throat. I found myself learning how to differentiate between his moods through these subtleties and I'd gage where we stood each night as we cleaned our weapons by whatever squat we were to inhabit for the night.

People tended to be much less friendly towards me when I proved to be more or less inseparable from my large, ghoulified, stony-eyed companion and the shotgun he was quick to reach for. This in itself was a fringe benefit of traveling with Charon. People started treating me like less of a child. Men stopped assuming I had come to their town just for them to clumsily hit on me. Children were practically the only ones who didn't show some kind of veiled intolerance towards Charon. I'd give the little buggers a bubblegum and watch them run off to to have the opposite kind of childhood I had.

But I digress.

Charon and I ended up shooting all of Reilly's Rangers because they had the audacity to shoot at him after we schlepped up endless stairs and killed like 50 muties to save their sorry asses. They shot at him, he shot at them, I shot at them and the little misunderstanding ended up costing them their lives.  
This was a running theme and if anything it just pushed me closer to him and further away from everyone else.

On the rare occasion that I "parked" Charon, telling him to wait for me until I finished whatever business I didn't want him to see, I comprehended more and more why he was so asocial.  
Without him standing behind me giving anyone who approached me the evil eye, people apparently assumed that it was perfectly fine to try to use me as their therapists or own personal errand girl and frankly, they were beginning to piss me off to the point that it was becoming a chore even to expend the energy to put a bullet in their skulls just so they wouldn't be able to tell me their sob stories and ask me to take care of their shit for them because they were too weak, stupid or whatever to take care of their own shit. Evidently, the answer to staying on Charon's good side and no having to deal with people's shit was just to avoid them as much as possible. Nobody annoys me, nobody loses their brains on the ground, nobody gets pissy and cleans his gun twice in a row.  
The two things I determined I needed  
were people to leave me the fuck alone and Charon's approval.  
And more drugs because mine were wearing off.


	6. Chapter 6

I found Dukov's place pretty well exactly where Crowley said it would be, which was a relief considering that we had just basically walked in a big stupid circle.  
Upon seeing Dukov's digs with its good bones and abundant supplies of every variety, I decided that I'd kill two birds with one stone by not only offing the slimy fucker as I had originally come to do but also taking over his place for a bit to relax which seemed like more of a reward than Crowley would be able to provide. I convinced myself that I'd do this one thing and then try to avoid situations like it again. I'd kill the guy and his whores, let loose, get fucked up and then go straight once and for all.  
I instructed Charon to stay outside and didn't waste any time before shooting Dukov in the head with my silenced 10mm at point blank, followed by his whores. I stripped them of their snazzy nighties and dragged their bodies into the bathroom where I cleverly sealed all of them in a stall one on top of the other while whistling along with some song I'd heard before on Galaxy Radio.

After the dirty deed was done I cracked the door for Charon and invited him in.

"I think we deserve a vacation." I said. "  
Let's take a day or two to recharge What do ya say?."

"As you wish." He replied, looking around, as wary as ever.

"Try not to sound so excited."

As per usual he insisted on securing the building despite my insistence of it's safety. He of course found the bodies in the bathroom on one of his patrols  
and the man from the 9th circle gave me the 3rd degree yet again.

"These bodies are still warm."

"Wasn't me."

"Then who?"

"I don't know, Charon. Raiders."

"Then this place is not safe. Raiders must have found a hidden entrance."

"Yeah, that's probably it."

"Why do you lie to me when all I am trying to do is ensure your safety?"

"Fine. They attacked me first and I had to defend myself."

"I did not hear any shots."

"They came at me with...knives."

"I have searched this place and not seen a knife."

"Well they're somewhere. I don't know. How is this relevant?"

"Where did you kill them? Perhaps the knives slid under something."

"So I killed them upstairs. So what?"

"Show me where the knives were dropped."

"Why is this important?"

"Where are the knives they attacked with?"

"Charon! What the fuck do you want from me to tell you?"

His jaw muscles clenched in silence and when he turned his back on me to walk away I didn't know what else to do except storm upstairs like a spoiled teenager being sent to her room.  
I cracked open a bottle of whiskey, took a swig and ended up choking on it and spitting it all over the place as it went down my trachea and up my nasal passage rather than down my throat.  
Here I was, treed by my so-called "servant" who was actually less a servant than he was a surly overlord training me like a dog through negative and positive reinforcement.  
If only old Ahzrukhal could see his boy now.

I sat upstairs and moped for a good long while wondering why I was allowing this to happen. Maybe I just needed to take charge and stop fretting about what would happen if and when I ever lost his contract. Maybe it'd be better if he put me out of my misery anyways. It's not like I was useful to anyone or anything, quite the opposite actually.  
Fast forward a few hours later and I was still upstairs, now parading around in a blood speckled pink slip for the hell of it, raiding the fridge and drinking/jetting my face off while Charon sat downstairs, still reed straight by the door, idly running his fingers over the gun in his lap.

I moseyed down the stairs, one fist full of jet, another grasping 2 bottles of booze.

"Hey. Charon. Truce. Ok?"

He just grunted at me.

"Stand down." I said.

" Wait. Yeah. I _order you_ to stand down."

He begrudgingly placed his shotgun on a table within arm's reach and settled stiffly.  
"Fine. But I still don't like the look of this place."

"You don't like the look of any place!"

I collapsed on the couch next to him, inhaled an ampule of jet and leaned back, thinking of how gratifying it was to do a hit of jet without my boots on. I wiggled my toes and stretched out contentedly. The jet massaged my brain making the yellow light bouncing off the stone walls look like prismatic sunlight cascasing over rock crystal and my skin reacted as invisible air currents carressed it like tony hairs of cool water. As my high wore down, I looked over at Charon. He looked uneasy. But he usually looked uneasy.

"Charon."

"What."

"The people who lived here before said that nothing bothered them here so you can relax."

His jaw muscles clenched.

"Just don't. The guy was a sleaze ball and he had it coming. Don't paint me out to be some kind of boogeyman just because I'm trying to survive."  
I playfully sidled up to him and pushed a bottle into his massive hand.

"Drink with me." I said

He took a good long drink and only tensed slightly when I boldly put my head on his shoulder and folded my arms across his chest

"Is it really true that ghouls need twice as much jet to get off?"

Charon cleared his throat, mumbled something unintelligible and looked at me sideways.  
"Aren't you cold?"

"Nope. Aren't you warm?"

He stared straight ahead and took another long drink.

"Why don't you take off your armor?"

"If that's what you wish, then I will-"

"Yeah yeah. Heard it before. Take off your armor. Relax for once. And yes. That's an order."

He stood up and mechanically slid off his shoulder armor, reached an arm over to his back and unbuckled the suit rolling it down to his waist revealing a threadbare black shirt underneath.  
He glared at me while he undid one belt buckle and then another, peeled the leather away from him and then to my surprise removed everything else he was wearing and proceeded to stand before me completely unclothed.

His leathery skin pulled taught over his gauntness, every contour of his sinew and muscle.

The elegance of his tendons as they shifted under his skin

which was not unlike the marble at the Museum of History.  
He had called my bluff.  
His eyes bored into mine as I tried to take in as much of his glorious form as I could before losing the stand off and averting my gaze to the filthy floor.

He picked up his shotgun and insolently slung it over his shoulder with one hand as he snorted at me in contempt.

"Like I said before." He said as he started up the stairs.  
"If you're too tender to get stung then don't shake the goddamn hive, kid." he called down.

I sat there for about 5 dumbstruck, trying to think of a comeback . 5 minutes turned into 10 and I had yet come up with anything so I just drank. The tables had been turned so fast it made my head spin.  
He had exposed me to be the pretender that I didn't even know I was and I had to clamp my hand over my mouth to stifle a sniffle as a tear or two fought to escape from my once swollen head.

I composed myself, huffed another hit of jet, slammed back a shot, wiped my face and pursued him upstairs where I found him crashed out in a single bed tucked behind a Nuka Cola machine in the corner.  
I was fairly certain that he had kind of inviting me to go to bed with him but why would he choose the single bed perfectly fine double bed right across the room?  
And a cleaner one with nicer linens on it nonetheless! Goddamnit!  
True, it was an improvement of sorts, considering I had only ever seen him sleep sitting up before after in between pacing sessions and the fact that his gun was propped up against the bed rather than in bed with him was also out of the ordinary. He was just infuriating beyond belief in every way and nothing was ever as simple as he tried to pretend everything was.

I stood there agonizing over all the details until my jet wore off and I was too lazy to go downstairs to get more. I stopped caring and jumped into the narrow bed next to him, pushing against him to get him to move over and sidling up next to him pulling his lanky arm over my body, running my fingers over its root-like veins and holding his calloused hand.

His body temperature seemed to be much hotter than my own or anyone else I've been this close to.  
The heat surrounding certain areas like under his arm and his groin almost uncomfortably so. It felt like I was sleeping with my back to a bonfire. I turned to face him, watched him as he slept. His breathing was practically inaudible but he seemed asleep enough so I pressed myself into his chest and brought up a hand to his throat marveling at the unexpected hardness of it. I had expected his flesh to be soft somehow. Spongy maybe. On the contrary he felt like leather left in the sun and he begged to be touched.

He grumbled and I froze.

"Out of all the beds in the joint you had to pick this one, huh?"

he said, his voice heavy, swelling from his chest.

"Shut up" I said.  
"Just go to sleep."

This time the smile I saw playing on Charon's lips was there without a doubt.

It was the first time I had ever really seen him smile and I fell asleep knowing that the line that needed to be crossed, had been crossed, and things were going to get as interesting as I wanted them to.


	7. Chapter 7

The next night we holed up.  
I camped out in the bed on the main floor and ate sugar bombs by the fistful right out of the box and he paced, shotgun in hand, because that's just what Charon does.

But today his armor was only half on and from time to time he looked at me in a way that made me feel like I was burning from within like a glowing one after I poked it with my Shiskebab.

Fwoom!

That night we both slept upstairs in the narrow bed again.  
It's almost as if we preferred to be denied the choice of putting any space between us and it was the bed that decided I had to sleep practically on top of him, not us.

That morning, he was presumably asleep and I really wasn't awake when my hand fell against something that I could have mistaken for granite if it wasn't as hot as the bomb in Megaton.  
I was still asleep when I just happened to roll onto my back and he just happened to roll on top of me wrapping his arms underneath me and breathing hotly into my ear that he wanted to fuck me. Presumably still in his sleep, he just happened to impale me like a squirrel on a stick and I just happened to let him because at this point I doubt he would or could've listened even if I had ordered him to stop.  
There were no more bluffs to be called and the whole ownership thing had become more stumped than the sex of a super mutant. Not that I know anything about that kind of thing.

Every time I tried to get out of bed he either held me firm or followed me only to take me down despite my half-assed giggly attempts to "escape". When I actually did manage to squirm away, he used the table I was storing my jet on as target practice. It was painful to watch all that shit go up in a spray of wood and inhaler bits but there wasn't much that could be done about it after the fact.  
When I opened my mouth to say something he just pulled me onto him and I forgot what I was going to say. A deep sense of calmness began to take root in me. Time was still distorted but most everything else started to make sense.

Mental and emotional revelations aside, my body was beginning to feel like a giant bruise so I was sort of glad when he inexplicably jumped out of bed to go take apart, clean and reassemble his gun two times in a row. He put his armor through a lengthy maintenance session and suited up  
and I took the hint and did the same.  
Except for the doing my gun two times thing. That was his neurosis not mine.

I grabbed all we could carry and began our treck to Rivet City to meet my Dad because it just seemed like the logical thing to do at the time. When we arrived in the evening. I visited the Doc and paid him to give me a shot of something that felt 10 times worse than the withdrawal itself He told me to "stay straight" as I lurched out of his room but not before I told him to "get bent."

Before we turned in for the night Charon requested a few minutes to "take care of something."  
We met back up after he "took care of it" and bought a room at the Weatherly.  
Turns out he slit the throat of a guy named "Sister" that night, don't ask me why. I don't know now and I"ll probably never know.

When we emerged from the room the next afternoon Ms. Weatherly and 2 other woman were talking in hushed, rushed tones at the front desk and they clammed right up when they saw me but not before I heard one of them whispering too loudly.

"_It's_ not her bodyguard, they were sharing a bed. I heard everything!"

First of all, fuck.  
You'd think that a ship made of steel would have better sound proofing.  
But I'd hedge my bets on one of the bitches mashing their ear up against the wall or something.  
Either way they knew that I wasn't making Charon sleep on the floor and that wasn't construction we were doing in the room last night.

I put my caps on the table with a saccharine smile.

"Hey...there's an extra 10 caps in there because we destroyed your sheets. Have fun with that."

I bit my lip to prevent myself from exploding into laughter as I turned my back and reunited with my not bodyguard in the hall. When we walked by I waved at them and sent them squawking to the extent that I could still hear them as we descended down the stairs towards the lab even over Galaxy Radio.  
People like them would probably love living in a vault so they could rot in the stagnation of their own preconceptions in a habitat as closed and narrow as their minds.  
I felt queasy thinking of all the years I spent in the vault. I thought about how much I'd seen in the short time I'd been out and I felt inconsolable when I thought of all the years I had been cheated out of living.


	8. Chapter 8

We reached the science lab and I just stopped in front of the door, unable to proceed.  
If I entered this door I'd bet all my caps that it was going to be something.  
I didn't know what exactly, but it would probably entail laying my life and Charon's life on the line to kill something or someone or grab something or deliver something or another and I had already bitten my lip until it bled just standing there thinking about it.  
What did I owe a man who kept me in a cage like a stupid flower trying to rob me of my life before abandoning me and leaving me with nothing more than a lies upon lies?  
What did I owe any of them? The only one who'd actually ever done anything for me was Charon.  
He didn't ask anything from me until I practically forced him to. He had the good graces not to impose on our friendship like that.

As I stood there deliberating, a crooner on Galaxy Radio spelled out for me the words that would forever be the second catalyst to my decision, the first one being Charon himself.

_I don't want to set the world on fire _ _I just want to start _ _A flame in your heart  
_

Sappy as it was it hit me harder than a deathclaw on buffout.

My resolve now intact, I spat blood on the ground, blurted my revelations to Charon, hoped he could express them more coherently than me and sent him in to pass my message on to Dr. Li and/or Dad.  
I pressed my ear to the door and heard snippets of words through the door.

"Excuse..intrusion...here on...behalf...my mistress... inform...she will not...accompany... memorial...not now...not later. Do not pursue... any attempts at contact...may be met...with...hostility...that is all...ood day."

He emerged from the lab and I thanked him with a squeeze on the arm.  
We turned and walked away briskly but not briskly enough.

"Theda!" My Dad called out,  
his voice ringing down the hall sounded as troubling to me as when robobrains speak all soothingly to you whilst they're trying to kill your ass.  
Just...unsettling.

My Dad jogged down the hall. Caught up with us.  
My face sank when I saw him and his face sank when he saw Charon.  
If I learned anything from living in a Vault for so many years it's that gossip travels as fast as the speed of light in small places. Maybe even faster.  
I looked at the expression on his face and I had no doubt whatsoever that someone, possibly everyone had already told him _things.  
_That I had been in Rivet City since the night before _and Dr. Preston said she spent most of her caps getting a detox shot for her drug addictions. _S_o then, how is she paying the big ghoul for his protection __services? Well I'll tell you. We heard with our own ears how she pays him. She's paying him with something other than caps for his protection services. Can you guess what that other thing is? Welll your first guess is the right one. I can tell you that much.  
And Sister was killed in cold blood last night too.  
Coincidence? I think not. That's probably what we heard her "paying" him for last night...  
and it wasn't over quick either. She was "paying" that ghoul until morning.  
Poor girl. It's probably the only way she knows how to survive on the Outside._

"Theda". My Dad repeated and I took a step backwards, tonguing where my lip bled.__

Charon sensed me tense up and made a move to step in front of me. My Dad took a step back and I pushed Charon back and took the step forward I should have from the get go.  
I just wanted this over.

"Please. You have to come to the memorial with us. It's crawling with mutants. We need your help."

"Hire a merc." I said to him plainly.  
"Like this one." I pointed to Charon and turned heel.

"Theda! This was your mother's dream!"

I stopped walking and recited it by memory.  
"Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end and giving unto him..."  
I stopped and let the words pass over me. I tried to feel something but I just didn't/  
"No sale." I said.  
I walked and he continued to follow.

"Theda." He said.

I stopped again. Waited for him to say he was sorry or something along those lines.  
That was the least he could do.

"What."

"Just help us to secure the Memorial and I promise...I"

"NO." I said "And that is final."

My Dad took a step forward and Charon had evidentially had enough because he stepped in front of me before my Dad could make contact with me.

"No more." Said Charon.

I nodded at Charon and watched as my Dad backed into the wall behind him.  
I turned my back on my Dad for the last time, walking away from him back into to the word that he had tried so hard to shelter me from.

Never to look back.

.


	9. Chapter 9

-Afterwards-

Many moons passed and many things transpired in the months after that day.  
I found a dog and I had a shack in the north that Charon and I found to be most agreeable in the sense that it was practically impossible to stumble upon by accident and it was close enough to a traders route that we weren't completely cut off from additional supplies if they were needed.

One day, I saw a stick with leaves on it poking up from the ground one day when we were out hunting.  
Another day we were surveying some cliffs and we saw a cluster of trees and a sizable patch of green spilling over the rocks, down into the water below.

But that is another story, and that is not my tale to tell.

_End. _

.


End file.
